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The new FEV Aero2meter

Reliable determination of the gas content in lubricants during engine operation

3. March 2015 | Software & Testing Solutions

For more than a decade, the FEV Aerometer has represented a reliable solution for the determination of the gas content in lubricants during engine operation. Its unique capability to consider not only the free (dispersed as bubbles) portion of the gas, but also the fraction that is dissolved in the oil as well as the standardization of the measurement result, have established the FEV Aerometer as the standard for the development and optimization of lubrication system performance in the field of oil aeration at OEM sites all over the world.

Fig. 1: FEV Aero2meter

Although the current FEV Aerometer is well suited for manually conducted investigations, it requires a manual recording of the oil column height and manual value input into the control unit after the measurement cycle. These features disqualify it for fully automated test runs. In order to fill this gap, FEV has developed the new FEV Aero2meter (Fig. 1). While retaining the absolute measurement principle, the design of a new cylinder unit incorporates a new drive concept and an additional compressibility test device while allowing elimination of the manual read out and value input step. As a result, the new FEV Aero2meter now is capable to conduct fully automated measurements, which allows implementation into fully automated test bench surroundings.

This opens new fields of investigations, such as automated oil aeration mappings or recording of the variation in oil aeration throughout an entire durability run. As a result, evaluation and rating of the impacts of oil ageing, oil dilution, the slowly changing oil level, or variations in oil aeration are possible.